In a statement released today, officials with Aldi, the international discount grocery store chain, confirmed that its Maywood store, located at 215 Madison St., will be closing on Saturday, Dec. 24.

The confirmation comes one day after village officials made a separate announcement during a Dec. 8 community meeting held at Kathy’s Cafe, 1008 S. 17th Ave. in Maywood.

The company said that the decision to close the Maywood store was due to the presence of other stores in nearby suburbs.

“We made a decision to close this store because there are several ALDI locations in the Bellwood, Broadview and Melrose Park areas that will continue to provide our customers with the highest quality products at the lowest possible prices,” the company statement read. “All of these stores are within a few miles of the Maywood location. We are pleased to share that all employees are able to transfer to surrounding ALDI stores.

“ALDI has been a member of the Chicagoland market for more than four decades, and we look forward to continue bringing Chicagoland families high-quality groceries at everyday low prices for many more years to come at our existing locations.

“We thank our customers for their many years of loyalty and hope they’ll continue to enjoy shopping at our other ALDI stores in the area.”

But some village officials, such as Maywood Trustee Isiah Brandon, aren’t satisfied with that company’s explanation for the store closure. Brandon said the company told board members that the reason the store was closing was because it was underperforming.

“The reason they stated is because the store is underperforming,” said Brandon during Thursday’s community meeting. “But I truly believe that they knew they were leaving months ago. You just don’t make a decision in one day.”

Since getting word of the store’s closing on Dec. 7, Brandon said, he’s contacted an Aldi executive by phone, who didn’t tell him much beyond the statement the company released.

Word of the store’s impending closure sent waves of shock and outrage throughout Facebook among community members, with some people suggesting that patrons write letters or start a petition to make their concerns known.

“This international discount grocer serves as this small community’s only grocery store. Many residents depend on the low prices and decent products that sits on a main street that meet their daily needs,” wrote Maywood resident Joellen Hopson in a change.org petition she started called “Keep Aldi store in Maywood.”

“I am a consumer and would hate to see Aldi close,” Hopson continued. “Meanwhile, the surrounding towns retain grocery stores while Maywood suffers to draw big box stores to its borders.”

On Thursday, Brandon said that Aldi officials notified him and his colleagues on the Board of Trustees that they had intended to sell the land on which the soon-to-close store sits. In its statement, Aldi officials didn’t address any future plans they had for the building and surrounding land the company owns.

The Madison Street Aldi has been open since the early 1990s, according to county records. In 1992, according to the Good Jobs First subsidy tracker, Maywood agreed to grant Aldi tax relief in the form of a local sales tax rebate, which was designed to help offset construction and environmental remediation costs.

The local subsidy was valued at $390,000, but so far it hasn’t been confirmed how much of the subsidy Aldi utilized or if the company was given any other subsidies after that point.

According to village officials, Aldi’s annual property tax bill was around $22,000. VFP

Correction: This post has been updated to reflect a more accurate approximation of Aldi’s annual property tax bill. A previous version of this post only considered the taxes of a single parcel. VFP regrets the error.

This is a stepping stone for the residents to get involved. But, it is up to the citizens of Maywood need to come to these town hall meetings and have their voice be heard. If some don’t have transportation, then…the residents need to have a strategy to accommodate some residents who don’t know how to get to the town hall meetings. It is very disturbing and sad that we wait at the last minute to voice our concern. This could have been prevented a long time ago!

For them to use property tax rates as an excuse to leave Maywood and if the figures shown above are correct, Aldi is paying less than the home-owning residents of the village. There is a breakdown in communication somewhere in this village. I can’t believe the village officials had no idea this was coming. Something just doesn’t seem right and I feel like there is a “back story of underhandedness” floating around behind the scenes. So, as always, the citizens are doing their part to retain a vital store in the community, but what are the politicians doing? Again, they are talking about it but when are they going to BE about it. This is a great example of why we need new trustees in the village who care about the success of the village, why we need people in positions within the village who actually live within the borders of the village of Maywood. When you work for a village but don’t live in it, you are not bothered by the problems that we, the residents face. These employees take their large checks back to their respective neighborhoods and spend their money their even though they are “supposed” to be bringing in business and revenue to Maywood. There is a chance to turn the “light” back on in the village of eternal light. How?? On election day in April of 2017, vote the trustees off of the village board who have done nothing to move the village forward!

This doesn’t make sense many suburban towns have more than one Aldi why would they close the only grocery store one town has? Citing that there are surrounding towns that have Aldi’s they can go to. Close one of them down that may have a grocery store besides Aldi’s and keep the maywood one open. What’s the real reason behind closing it, I wonder . . .